Old Timer
by Wapanese Witticism
Summary: At the ripe old age of sixty-two, John Darling is tired with his dull life. But when he experiences an epiphany and rekindles old passions, he decides to try one last thing before retiring: Pokémon training. Watch an old dog learn new tricks.
1. Getter Started, Youngin'

**Getter Started, Youngin'**

* * *

><p><strong>I.<strong>

Why, of all the things he owned, did he have to lose his passion? Why, of all his relationships, did he lose his marriage? Why, of all choices for a middle-aged man to make, did he decide to become a pokemon trainer at the ripe old age of sixty-two?

Why, John did not know.

* * *

><p><strong>II.<strong>

He decided that it was because of that pokemon.

The damn thing had done it: had planted the seeds of self-realization, had made it impossible for him to go on living his dull life, had made him rethink continuing his loveless marriage, had caused a chain reaction that ended in an explosion, an epiphany that had been fifty-two years overdue, but yet not too late to right.

Not bad for a wild animal.

* * *

><p><strong>III.<strong>

He was fifty-four. He'd practiced in a tiny town off the coast of Hoenn for close to ten years. Sunny, tropical, beautiful and consistent weather—a place for retirement. Pacifidlog Town. Nobody over the age of forty or under the age of ten lived there. Only old geezers like him, rocking their rocking chairs, shooting shit off their sea porches as the sun went up and down. Little kids letting their toes kiss the splashing waves, giggling and shrieking while their older brothers and sisters prepared themselves for their journeys.

Edna had wanted the move, her idea for some peace. See the beaches, take a few cruises, enjoy life as they settled into middle age together, just like how those pamphlets described. After the Incident, that was it. She didn't want to be near cities anymore. They made her depressed.

All that time, John wondered, Is this where I'm going to die?

But it wasn't. Because eight years later, a near-dead pokemon would remind him that even though he felt like he was dead, it wasn't his time yet.

* * *

><p><strong>IV.<strong>

It was nine in the morning, by his wristwatch, and he was sixty-one years and seven months old. His feet ached, his hands creaked, his face frozen in a neutral expression. The clinic he ran, just a small practice, was supposed to open at eight, not nine; however, he'd woken up late, stuck in bed wondering how the hell he was going to climb out of it. Nobody minded, though. The town was small enough that everyone knew everyone's business, and when those businesses would open; if there was an emergency, they knew where he lived.

The lock clicked open and John carefully pushed open the door, mindful of the door's hinges. Because of the moisture, rust formed quickly. Last week the door had almost squished him whole after the hinges gave out.

The clinic's interior was small and white and brown, wood and paint and the smell of salt water. Two wooden chairs, a windowed desk, and an artificial palm tree made up the waiting room; behind the desk was a door, and that led to two rooms: an examination room, and a file room.

The examination room was used only for prescribing medicine; John knew all his patients, and they all knew it was only a formality. They usually walked in and out, five minutes at most; not even toddlers with headcolds took that long to diagnose and treat. In the file room, John sat and read medical journals to pass the time. It was an exciting day when he had two patients to look after.

He walked into the waiting room and opened the curtains, allowed the sun inside the dark room. Same as always, he thought, looking out at the sea. He wondered why the thought tired him.

* * *

><p><strong>V.<strong>

John wasn't licensed to treat pokemon, only humans. It hadn't been a conscious decision on his part; when strangers asked him why he chose humans, he would say, "I guess I never really thought about it until after the fact." But that didn't sound like him. He always thought things through; he never rushed. He wasn't impatient. Even Edna asked him why.

"I don't know," he had said. "Honestly. I wasn't thinking, I suppose."

Maybe he just didn't like pokemon, he would think. Perhaps he preferred patients he communicated with, and his subconscious was sparing him from his own prejudice. In any case, it wasn't like he was losing money; on the contrary, he usually made more than those that practiced exclusively on pokemon. (Those that practiced on both, however, always made most, hands down.)

As he tended the bloody foot of an eight-year-old, he found that the girl was very chatty, very talkative, and very much wanted her mind away from the pain of his probing tweezers. She was interested in pokemon, as every child was, and she wanted to know why he wasn't working in a pokemon center.

"Because I can't treat pokemon," he replied, pulling out another piece of glass.

The eight-year-old's foot twitched. "_Ow_," she whined, clutching her mother's hand tightly. She took in a breath, he paused, and then she asked, "Why?"

"Because I didn't go to school for it." He searched for shards with his magnifiers.

"Why?" she said. Her voice sounded faint.

He paused and pulled out another piece. "I'm not an animal person."

"But p-people are animals too," she said in a soft, but smart alec-y tone. "Same thing, right?"

John wondered how she sounded so calm despite the fresh tear tracks down her face. Daisy was her name, and she'd come from Kanto for a vacation with her mother when a smashed bottled had made its way into her foot.

Maybe that explained it, John thought. Kanto had a hell of a lot of gangs.

"I suppose," he said, cleaning of the blood from his tweezers. It was his answer to everything, his reply to the mundane and the fantastic. Edna often said if he ever met a Mew, the first thing he would say would be, "I suppose you exist." He found that she was often right when it came to those sorts of things.

"How long?" asked her mother after a quiet moment. Her eyes were bloodshot, strained, and underneath them sat purple bruises. Her posture seemed deflated, like a puppet held by a single string.

"Just a few more pieces," he replied. "I suppose there might be some infinitesimal fragments scattered here and there, but the wailmer solution should disintegrate them wholesale."

The mother rubbed her eyes and nodded. "Thank you for this, letting us in at this hour."

It was around eleven at night. Most of Pacifidlog was asleep.

"No problem," he said. "I wasn't even ready for bed."

Before her mother could reply, her daughter asked, "Why do you hate pokemon?"

John blinked.

"_Daisy_," said her mother, glaring, "what did I tell you about those kinds of questions?" The words came out through clenched teeth, the way mothers always talked when upset but unwilling to make a scene.

"But _Mom_—"

"What do you say to him?"

Daisy turned to John with a reluctant line for a mouth. "I'm sorry," she said. There was a hint of a whine in-between each syllable.

John blinked again. "It's fine."

"I'm sorry, she's just very curious," said her mother, bowing her head, going a little deeper than a nod. "I'm very sorry."

"No, it's fine," he said. But his lungs seemed to have filled with something, a light sort of fluid, or a gas, and he wondered if he was having an attack—but there were no other symptoms, and it felt more like anxiety, like the feeling he'd had on his wedding day: as if there was something to wait for and greet at the door, a nameless something that was to change his life—a commitment, a vow, an oath to be sworn. What was it? he wondered. Had he said the magic word?

At sixty-two years and seven months old, John Darling felt like he had just been reborn. And he did not know why.

* * *

><p><strong>VI.<strong>

He locked up the clinic for the night. With a click, the locking mechanism fell into place, and John pocketed the key. He thought of going home, finding Edna asleep or perhaps with her newest woman friend, and decided against it. He wanted to clear his head, feel the wind, look at the sea from the furthest pier. He didn't know why, but the thought of his usual routine seemed toxic, poisonous, fatal to his heart and mind.

So he decided to take a stroll, see the stars, and wonder why the hell he had such an ominous sense of foreboding in his creaky joints.

* * *

><p><strong>VII.<strong>

"Windy," John murmured, pulling his coat's collar closer to his neck. An especially strong breeze threatened to knock him off the pier, pulling the ends of his coat like a beige kite. Above him, large clouds were swept away towards Slateport, silhouetted by the light of a gibbous moon, blanketing his face in shadow.

John frowned. "Damn. No stars."

The wind picked up, and the last shreds of cloud cover shifted forward. The light of the moon illuminated the sea, the faded wood of the pier, and he could pick out the faintest pinpricks of light deep in the sky.

"That's more like it," he said, smiling.

And that was when an epiphany hit him.

* * *

><p><strong>VIII.<strong>

From out of nowhere, something large, heavy and gooey smacked John straight in his middle, a clean punch into his chest. He fell over, hitting the pier's wood with a muffled thump, and everything in his body seemed to ring like a windchime knocked this way and that by a hurricane.

* * *

><p><strong>IX.<strong>

Sometimes things never happened the way they were supposed to, thought John, feeling as though his lungs would give out. He'd wanted to do something different for once, perhaps ponder the world as he gazed up at the stars, maybe watch the corsola dance on the reefs—but no, _no_, of course not, the moment he deviated from his usual routine, he was bombarded by—by—

John's eyes widened; his jaw went slack; the wrinkles of neutrality carefully cultivated over fifty years of life fell away to reveal a smoother, lined forehead, pale blue eyes, an expressive mouth; his shriek of fright died in his mouth, as he couldn't find the strength to even scream. In this one instant, John Darling felt like he had aged thirty years and regained forty.

Lit by the moon, two vacant eyes stared up at him, black, piercing, omnipotent—they could see his past, his present, his future. And they called to him, called for him to move, to act, to do something, _anything_, if only to exercise his strength in the face of danger.

And following this order, John brought up a shaking hand, balled it into a fist, and slammed it in-between the two eyes, shattering their hold on his mind. He wriggled out from underneath the creature, relieving himself of the soul-crushing pressure, and panting, he clutched his chest and watched as the creature unfurled to its full length, revealed its form, releasing a mighty roar—

John blinked. He stopped breathing.

* * *

><p><strong>X.<strong>

It was a slowpoke.


	2. Gorram Newfangled Whatchamacallits

**Gorram Newfangled Whatchamacallits  
><strong>

* * *

><p><strong>I.<strong>

There were many thoughts running through John's mind.

The first was, _What the hell is happening? _He'd only been standing on the pier, stars in his eyes, wind blowing through his receding hairline, and then what? The wind had blown a slowpoke into his face? What the hell?

The second thought was, _What the hell am I going to do? _Was he supposed to leave the slowpoke there, leave the damn thing on the pier for anyone to stumble upon? Would it hurt the townspeople? Despite his career choice, he didn't particularly_ like _healing people; even moreso, he disliked causing injuries in the first place.

And then, of course, what about _himself_?was his third thought. His lungs were burning, his chest was burning, his mouth was hot with held breath. His finger traced along the sides of his ribcage, skirting just underneath his lungs, and came to his head, checking for tenderness; he didn't detect any change in the bones, in the form, in the way he was breathing—only slight panting, but no pain for each breath—and decided he had some bruising, slight at the best, black and blue at worst. He was probably in shock as well.

The fourth thought was the last thought: _What now? _Allow the slowpoke to run free? Take it back with him, stuff it into his closet? Hold onto it and wait for the weekly supply copter from Sootopolis to come, and then give it to them? The last time he'd checked, slowpoke weren't native to Hoenn. Did that mean a trainer had abandoned it? Or had it escaped its poke ball, perhaps even mid-flight, and landed on him by mistake?

John closed his eyes and breathed in deeply.

* * *

><p><strong>II.<strong>

All the while, the slowpoke did nothing but stare blankly at John. And then it yawned.

The clouds overhead shifted.

* * *

><p><strong>III.<strong>

John's legs began to hurt after the first ten minutes of standing. Complaining about arthritis to no one in particular—he sure as hell wasn't talking to the slowpoke—he sat across from the thing, eye-to-eye, and decided he was tired, very, very tired. Tired enough to want sleep, in his own bed, in his own home, his wife's affairs be damned.

But that left the slowpoke.

John wasn't a trainer. He had never been a trainer, either. He had no poke balls, nor did he think anyone in Pacifidlog had any spares. Any trainers currently residing within Pacifidlog were retired, or on their journeys at the moment.

John looked down at the slowpoke.

Pink and fat, covered in an anonymous wetness (the identity of which he did not want to know of), the slowpoke observed as John observed it, eyes unblinking. Shaggy and as long as a ponyta's head, its brown muzzle was open in a half-grin, with yellowed, rounded teeth covered in what looked like seaweed. Its ears had the appearance of newly abandoned seashells, spiraled inwards towards a black center; its legs were stubbed and punctuated by white hooves; and its stomach was covered in yellow scales that looked like rocks. It did not move for the whole twenty minutes John stared.

However, John stopped staring abruptly when he noticed what had happened to its tail.

* * *

><p><strong>IV.<strong>

There was no tail. Instead, what was left was a bleeding red stump of a mutilated husk. Trickles of blood oozed from horribly scarred holes. If John was one for black comedy, he would've said it looked like Swiss cheese made by a butcher.

Without even thinking, John removed his coat and threw it over the oblivious slowpoke. It wasn't an effort to stop the blood—no, that wouldn't stop it—but John, for all his training with human wounds, just could not stomach the sight of a wounded pokemon. As he often said, humans and pokemon were_ different_. Compared to a human injury, this was... much worse. Much, much worse.

Well, John thought with a sigh, I can't leave it behind _now_, can I?

* * *

><p><strong>V.<strong>

It was fucking hard work to move a slowpoke.

For one, the slowpoke wouldn't fucking _move_. It only sat there as John pushed, and pushed, and _pushed_. (He did not dare pull for fear of throwing out his back.) It yawned, it flicked its huge pink tongue, it stared as John forced his arms against the doughy, moist skin, and yet it did not once move its legs, not even backwards. Was it in a state of shock? John thought. That made two of them—however, to make the biggest difference, _he was fucking moving_.

For two, John's whole entire body was set aflame: in pain, in sweat, in unbearably hot heat that wafted up through his shirt and pants, and then swooped from his undershirt's V-neck to his red face. His arthritis _chick_ed and _chock_ed and _click_ed at his bones, pulled his tendons until he saw stars across his vision; he choked on his own spit and coughed and coughed and coughed; his ears were strained against the wind, which had unexpectedly picked up.

For three: How did one move a slowpoke? If there was a certain way of it, John did not know. Did he roll it like a ball? Did he push it like a table, or a piano, or a sofa? Did he push from the back, where its bloody stump was, or did he push from the face? From the side? Did he push with a zig-zag pattern? Or straightforward? And so on, and so forth.

For four, it started to rain.

* * *

><p><strong>VI.<strong>

The only good fortune John had was that his home was close to the pier. (His clinic was even closer, but the walkways weren't large enough for his small problem.) It took a little over an hour to move the fat lump to the front door of his cottage.

A thunderstorm had stirred itself to full pitch. John was drenched from his hair to his socks, and he was shivering from the cold. By the time he knocked on the door, he was dead tired and couldn't have cared less about the slowpoke peering up at him through his coat.

A moment later, the door opened by a sliver, enough to tantalize John with the heat of the inside. Edna's green eyes contemplated him from between the door bolt and the chain. She was gripping her robe closed, her lips shut tight in uncertainty.

"J-John?" she said. "Why are you here so early?"

"A problem came up after work," said John, and he coughed as quietly as he could into his fist. Over Edna's head, he could see a stranger's outfit draped haphazardly over the couch. "I'm sorry for disturbing you, but, ah—" He waved his hand down the door. "I need inside."

"R-right now?" Edna never whined, but a hint of one creeped into her voice. "Um, m-my guest—"

John furrowed his eyebrows. "I'm sorry, but this is an emergency."

"B-But—"

"_Now_, Edna, no time."

The door closed on his face. John counted to ten. After thirteen seconds, the door was thrown open completely, and the warmth hit John like a poke ball to the head. It was a welcome pain, however; the heat of exercise had made way for a deep chill in his skin, and this gentle warm was soothing.

The clothes on the sofa were gone. Edna stood in her robe, naked if he guessed right, and glanced at him up and down.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice breathy, as if she'd run a mile. "Are you hurt?"

"Not me," he said, and he pointed at his side, where the outside light had not reached. The slowpoke was in the shadows. "_That_ is."

Edna hesitantly walked passed him, out into the cold, and peered behind his shoulder. Even after being rolled for an hour, it still wasn't moving. As though it was a statue, it sat there, staring at Edna as she stared back.

"That's a...pokemon?" she asked in a hushed tone. Her hand was rubbing at his arm, trying to calm herself. "Is she hurt?"

John blinked. He'd never thought of the thing as a she.

"John?"

He shook his head. "Yes, it's hurt. The tail—its tail—gone. Completely. Cut off."

Edna gasped, pulling her robe closer. "What?"

"Yes. I couldn't bring it to my clinic, so I thought here would be good enough. We have some tools, a first aid kit. That will work for now." He glanced at the slowpoke. "I don't know if it will grow back. The tail."

She pushed her curly hair away from her face. "What species is she?"

"Slowpoke."

"Aren't...aren't they heavy?" she asked.

John shrugged, and regretted it when his back acted up. He winced, but with Edna's eyes on him, pretended instead to yawn.

"John? Are you all right?"

"Perfect," said John. He tried hard not to blink; he did not succeed, however.

Edna instantly picked up the sign. "Your arthritis," she said, glancing down. She grasped his hand in hers, stroking his knuckles softly. "Didn't that hurt?"

John shrugged again. "I'm a doctor."

* * *

><p><strong>VII.<strong>

Together with Edna, they managed to push the slowpoke inside the house, blood trailing behind them from the stump. From the bathroom, a woman that looked in her forties and somewhat familiar to John walked into the room, wearing the blue robe John had bought for Edna's women. Her hair was a cherry shade of red, her lipstick was smeared at the corners of her mouth, and her eyeshadow was a dark shadow that had long been rubbed off, leaving behind a faint ghost.

"Edna—" she sing-songed, before she caught sight of John in the room. "U-uh," she stammered, staggering backwards, "J-John?"

"Hello, Patty," said John politely. He recognized her from Edna's book club. He waved hello, and then pointed down at the slowpoke. "I'm sorry for the intrusion, but unfortunately, we've a problem."

Edna grinned at her helplessly. "John picked up a hitchhiker." She reached down and pulled lightly on the coat.

The woman—Patty, he reminded himself, her name was _Patty_—scrubbed her eyelids. Her lips formed an O shape. "What," she finally said, after a strangled pause, "are you doing?"

"Fixing a slowpoke," said John. He nodded at her. "Would you mind?"

Still quite in shock, Patty complied without a word. She hitched up her robe, tied her belt tighter, and stood in-between the two of them, rolling up her sleeves. "Where to?" she asked.

* * *

><p><strong>VIII.<strong>

It was much faster with the three of them. With a few gasps and some heavy breathing, they picked up the slowpoke and left it on the couch, careful to avoid the stump. John pulled up a chair from the dining room table, sat in it, and took in a deep breath. The air of the house smelled like incense and perfume. It tingled the roof of his mouth.

"What now?" asked Edna, massaging her forearms.

John cleared his throat. "First aide kit," he managed to say. His hands were gripping his knees in a futile effort to relax the pain. "First aide kit," he repeated in a more stable voice.

Edna ran off down the hall. Patty was left in the same room as him. She shifted from foot to foot, and John wondered if she was uncomfortable. He believed so; being discovered by a lover's husband did not sound like a particularly nice situation to live.

"Patty?" he said quietly.

She started at the sound of his voice; her eyes had been focused as far away from him as she could manage. "J-John?" she mumbled. Her eyes were trained a bit beyond his hair.

"I'm not mad," he said, looking up into her eyes.

She did not meet them. Her cheeks reddened. Before she could reply, Edna came running back into the room, her arms cradling a rather large white box. She thrust the box into John's arms, huffing.

"Thank you," said John. Clearing off the coffee table, he pushed the magazines and candles onto the floor, and then placed the contents of the kit onto the table.

He looked to Edna. "Could you take care of things while I wash my hands?"

Edna nodded. She gave a pointed look to Patty, and the two scurried around, moving cushions, pushing away lamps, clearing the area. John walked away to the kitchen, allowing them their private time.

* * *

><p><strong>IX.<strong>

First thing was disinfectant. After pulling on his rubber gloves, John grabbed the bottle and poured the stuff onto a piece of gauze. "Hold it down," he said. "Don't let it move." He wasn't sure when the slowpoke would react, but he wanted to be as prepared as possible.

Edna and Patty did as they were told. The slowpoke did nothing but stare straight ahead.

"All right," John said. He moved in, paused for movement, and then came closer when there was none. "All right, I'm starting. Be prepared."

He gently pressed the gauze against the stump. He held it there and waited for a reaction. None came. He pressed the gauze down harder and soaked up the blood, and still, the slowpoke did not react. Feeling quite stupid, John began to dab at the wound, prodding the bloody holes until they were less bloody and all touched upon.

The next two hours were long and tedious. After disinfecting, John set out on stitching up the wounds, as they were too deep to heal on their own. The needle pierced, the wires held tight, the skin pulled taut, and through it all, there was no sign of conscious movement on the part of the slowpoke. John was half-convinced it was asleep.

After the stitches came the clean-up, which was easy enough. The blood was swiped off, the tourniquet was tied, and Edna had mercifully decided to close the slowpoke's eyelids, as John often checked to see if it was conscious. By the end of it, the slowpoke had a cold compress on its head, its teeth cleaned of seaweed, and its hooves trimmed down. It looked cleaner, smoother, less wet, and much pinker; its breaths came evenly and deeply. At three o'clock on the dot, everything to be done was done.

* * *

><p><strong>X.<strong>

John took a bath afterwards, as he wasn't sure he could stand a minute more, and fell asleep in the water. By the time Edna retrieved him, the bath water had cooled, his skin was pruned, Patty had gone, and the slowpoke was turned on its side, head nestled deep into the couch, snoring loud enough to wake the dead.


End file.
